Fuck.
She rolls the window down, propping her feet—boots and all—up and out, dropping her head back onto the seat. She closes her eyes as she taps her feet to the beat, Raul Alejandro playing through my speaker. She moves her hips on the seat, her dress climbing up, showing her toned thighs. My dick grows hard in my pants at the sight.
I look away; I can’t go there again. It’s for her own good.
“You know, for someone who refuses to acknowledge me in public, your little friend down there surely has a different opinion.”
How did she even notice that?
“Also, whatever this song is, I love it. Play more.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I reply, setting the volume higher as my playlistcontinues. Even if she has no clue what these songs say, she’s still bouncing and moving—one with the music. It pulls at my heart, and I want more with her than I can let myself hope for. Not because of her body or the way she makes me feel, but because of how much light she carries with her, how I feel like a better person when I’m around her, how I feel like I could spend a lifetime with her and never be bored, even if it’s just the two of us in a truck, driving for hours on end. But how do I make myself into the man she needs when all I seem to know how to do is keep pretty things captive? She deserves to have her wings and fly away.
So I shouldn’t.
I can’t.
I won’t.
“It’s not that I don’t want to acknowledge you in public, Firefly. I just don’t want to mess things up with your sister and the ranch.”
I park the truck in my driveway, keeping my head low so hopefully, she won’t see how conflicted I am. I like her. I want her. I don’t know how to do this.
“I wasn’t asking you to make out with me in front of my sister, but damn, you made me feel like you didn’t want to be near me.” She looks away from me, stabbing my heart in the process.
“I wanted nothing more than to be near you. I hated that I had to work all day when all I wanted to do was be near you.” This is the most honest I’ve ever been with anyone about my feelings, so even if it’s not enough, it might be a good start.
“Funny way of showing it…”
“Besides, watching you give that punk your smiles wasn’t easy to watch.”
She turns her face, smiling as she reads between the lines. “I give everyone smiles. Are you jealous?”
I shake my head.
“Dominic Diaz,youare!” she teases. “I mean, this is a sexy dress, I don’t blame you, but there’s nothing to be jealous about.”
I want to ask if it’s because she only wants me, or because I don’t have the right to be. The fact that I’ve been second-guessingmy every choice since the night I met her has me feeling all sorts of ways. I’m a thirty-six year old man, and here I am, acting like a possessive asshole at the thought of Riley smiling at someone else.
She can read me like her favorite book, because she reaches over, caressing my cheek as she says, “All I could think about wasyou, even when I was dancing with two men who were not.”
She slides her hand over my thigh, climbing up until she reaches my dick, and I stiffen.
“Riley,” I grunt. I love that she enjoys sex and that she knows what she wants and goes for it, but right now, I want to know if she enjoys my company, if she thinksI'mworth being around, at least now, when I haven’t ruined who we are.
“Listen, I know. We’re friends, we are fooling around, yada, yada, and that’s fine with me.” She brushes it off. “But I wouldn’t be sleeping with someone else if I’m sleeping with you.” She perks up, sitting up straighter and daring me to look in her eyes. “I don’t want to either.”
I swallow hard and nod.
She palms my crotch and smiles, knowing damn well what she’s doing. “And you didn’t ask me this, but I do really like you, Dom.”
I groan with closed lips, trying my darndest to keep my shit together. I don’t want to hurt her, but I also don’t know what the fuck to do with all these feelings.
“And your dick,” she says.
I groan again.
“Or are you gonna tell me this—” she roams her body with her hands, making the dress stick to her every inch, her nipples hardening under my eyes, “didn’t do it for you? Because I think it did.”
